Scientists have found a way to estimate uncertainties in computer calculations that are widely used to speed the search for new materials for industry, electronics, energy, drug design and a host of other applications.

Harold Hwang, the deputy director of SLAC's Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES), has been awarded the 2014 EPS Condensed Matter Division Europhysics Prize for his role in the discovery and investigation of electron liquids at oxide interfaces.

Scientists at SLAC and Stanford show how high-temperature superconductivity emerges out of magnetism in an iron pnictide, a class of materials with great potential for making devices that conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency.